


Peaches and Dreams

by luciferstolemymoose



Category: Neon Genesis Evangelion
Genre: Alternate Universe - College/University, Angst, Daddy Issues, Emotional/Psychological Abuse, Eventual Fluff, Hurt/Comfort, I swear KawoShin is the main focus I just wanted more tags, Lowkey AsuMari, Mental Health Issues, Multi, Physical Abuse, Psychological Trauma
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-03-06
Updated: 2016-03-06
Packaged: 2018-05-25 01:05:25
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,769
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6173995
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/luciferstolemymoose/pseuds/luciferstolemymoose
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>If people complain about college so much, then why go in the first place? Are they complaining about the money? The people? Or that strange, bony creature slinking against the wall, out of sight, possibly waiting to strike? Jocks are the least of your worries when you're haunted by the shadows in the corner of your eye, as well as the memory of your dead family; the crippling guilt tip-toeing up your spine when your back is turned.</p><p> For Shinji Ikari, college isn't about gaining knowledge, it's about getting out alive. If escaping your horrible past is a challenging feat, then how impossible is it to run from your own mind? Luckily for Shinji, his dilapidated world decides to spit out some helpful friends. In this strange story about broken hearts, broken minds and broken families, Shinji realizes there's more to life than depression. He just has to give it a shot.<br/>.<br/>.<br/>.<br/>Yeah, as if a story could ever really end that nicely. This is a decimating tale about how emotional infection can't always be treated with antibiotics. Not everything can be cured, but small doses of family and friends may help relieve the pain. You can't run from your poisoned mind, but you can run from toxic people.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Peaches and Dreams

**Author's Note:**

> This has been sitting on my computer for a few weeks/months/probably longer. I've had this idea for an AU for years, and so I wrote a chapter! If it gets positive feedback I might continue it. I'll probably continue it regardless, but still.
> 
>  
> 
> Also this is basically an intro chapter. There'll be a lot more meat later on in the story, but for now you're just getting the... salt I guess? Oh who knows. It'll taste better when it's completed. Until then, please enjoy! 
> 
>  
> 
> (Ratings and additional tags will be added as the story progresses)!
> 
> ... And yes, I did purposely post the first chapter on March 5.

~•~•~  
_"How beautiful it is and how easily it can be broken."_  
Tennessee Williams, the Glass Menagerie.  
~•~•~

If you were to ask me what life was like, realistically, I would say something along the lines of "I'm not too sure," but give me time to think about it, and I might answer quite differently. Right now, I think life can best be described as a song. As a college student, I shouldn't be speaking as poetically as I am right now, but from a young age my parents always told me that I was pretty 'artsy-fartsy." Thanks, parents. 

Anyway, life is a song. When you're born, everything is so confusing. You have no idea what's happening. You're learning how to walk, how to eat and how to talk, but you're not actually aware of it. Really, you're just going with the flow. Until you reach a certain age, and it's a different age for everyone, things just kind of leave you guessing, much like the first verse of a song. The first verse is the earliest thing you hear. Because you've never heard the song before, this verse is basically a first impression. It doesn't repeat at any point in the song, so you never really learn the words until it's over. You're left mumbling them without confidence and most of the lyrics you try to guess are either hit or miss. 

The second verse? I think that would be adult life. It's the time when you press the skip button on your phone, as you usually only stick around for the chorus—that of which I'll analyze in a minute. Those who do stick around for this verse usually discover that it is pretty close to the first one. The words are different, but it's a bit easier to guess them because you are familiar with the rhythm. In adult life, you already know how to eat and sleep all by yourself, but ideas like taxes, mortgages and insurance are all brand-new to you; it's basically like learning to breathe again because you're learning something that you'll be dealing with for the rest of your life. Nobody really pays attention to these lyrics, they just know that there's a cool guitar or drum solo coming up at the end. 

That solo is like being old. There aren't any words because there's nothing else to do. It's scary, knowing that the song is going to end soon. The truth is, the first time you hear an instrumental solo, you really don't know how long it's going to last. It could be 30 seconds or seven minutes, much like how people have different, indeterminable life-expectancies. There's nothing to fear, that is, until the song really does end. But even then, there's more music elsewhere in the world. 

Now, the chorus—the most memorable moment of the song—it is repeated or reprised in nearly every song in existence, and it's usually what draws you into listening to the song in the first place. It’s what makes the song popular…or what could make or break it. 

That's where I'm at—young adulthood—the chorus of my life. 

My name is Nagisa Kaworu, and I've decided to write my chorus in a hollow dorm room, studying the mechanisms of the human mind. 

~•~•~ 

Ever since I was about eight, I've been interested in how the human mind works. You see, when I was eight, my mother, Eve, brought home another baby. There was a catch though. My mother was never pregnant. 

I never knew adoption was a thing until I hit a phase where I thought I was adopted myself. Of course, my parents disproved this theory. My sister never developed the belief that she was adopted. She was only a baby when my mother brought her home, so I'm sure she doesn't remember her biological family. Sometimes I would ask myself whether or not she was even capable of remembering, as my sister, Rei, is both blind and deaf. Sounds like something out of a storybook, doesn’t it? Well it’s not. It’s the harsh reality she’s valiantly living with. 

I always figured she was related to me because of the color of her eyes, a weird, pinky-red that runs in my mom’s side of the family, so that's probably why young me never thought she was adopted. Of course, now, I'm sure she is not my biological sister. My mother told me that Rei's family died in a car crash when she was just a baby. The only survivor had been her father, who was not in the vehicle at the time. The paramedics thought she was dead on arrival. Nonetheless, they brought her to the hospital where my mother worked and, lo and behold, there she was—alive. A blind, mostly deaf and helpless 24-month-old, but she remained alive. Doctors tried to contact her father or any distant relatives, but nobody would claim her. It was wretched, really. Thus, my amorous mother decided to bring her home. (Who would refuse a baby, am I right, mom)? I still love her though, biological sister or not. 

I'm not sure why Rei is named like she is. All I know is that whenever my mother brought her home that was the name embroidered on the blanket she was swaddled in. I found this strange, as neither hospitals nor adoption clinics usually do that. It must've been the name that her birth parents gave to her. Maybe the blanket was the only intact thing they pulled from the crash site. My mother is quite a sentimental person, so I can see why she would be willing to take in a poor little girl who has nothing to her name except for her name. 

Rei took a liking to me immediately. I was only eight, and she was only a baby when my mom brought her home, but once she was old enough to play, I was about ten years old. She looked up to me (as best she could without any eyesight), and, of course, I catered to her. Okay, I'll admit, I spoiled my sister. I spoil everyone, to be quite honest; I can't help it. My parents raised me to care about everyone, and to look at things from the other persons' perspective. 

"Kaworu," my mom would brush my cheek. (My family is also quite touchy, on top of the freakishly nice thing). "Before you say something, try standing in their shoes. How do you think they feel right now? Be ready to defend yourself, but don't start fights without knowing what the other person could be thinking." 

My parents' lectures never really made sense if I thought about them too much. The point of that one is basically to not be hasty when you're arguing, and to be sympathetic towards the other body. 

Unfortunately for me, I take the sympathy part a bit too far. As if it weren't enough that my parents were teaching me to act like a cream puff, the personality I was born with happened to already reflect their teachings, even before they were enforced. It's kind of like a double-stuffed Oreo. It was already sweet, but now it's even sweeter, maybe even too sweet for some people. I was a nice kid. I got along with everyone; I picked people up when they fell down, bandaged their bruises and played with them when they were lonely. Whenever my parents began driving the importance of kindness into my mind, instead of revolting, I took it to heart and began to act even kinder. 

So what's the problem with that, you ask? Well, people tend to take advantage of that. In fact, people have taken advantage of me so often recently that I've been afraid to really befriend anyone. Of course, I'm nice to everyone, but I don't, nor have I ever truly had, a real friend. I had friends, don't get me wrong, but my only best friend was my sister. 

I think that might be part of the reason I moved here. After I breezed through high school, unnoticed by the general population of my small town, I decided I wanted to attend college. 

My college is located outside of Tokyo. It's not really in the city, or even in the suburbs. It's a good hour drive from anywhere, so I'm forced to stay on-campus. The scenery is so beautiful, and the psychology program is superb. 

Oh, yes, psychology. I've been interested in the human mind all of these years because of my sister. Rei was a normal kid, but she was always so distant. My mom would always scold me if I asked about her shyness, but I honestly just wanted her to achieve happiness. She never appeared distraught or saddened, only empty. Most of the reason I'm in the field of psychology is because I want to make my sister feel better, but before that can happen, I need to know what's wrong with her. It didn't take long to figure that out, of course. 

I was a few classes in, and my professor, a pale, blonde, short-haired woman, played a game with us where she asked the lecture hall to give her different symptoms that someone might experience. She would diagnose the imaginary subject based on our description. Those of us who gave her clues about different conditions appeared incredibly impressed at her diagnostic skills. I, on the other hand, was devastated when she told me that my sister was depressed after guessing my clues. Only mildly depressed, but still, my sister? The one I worked so hard to protect? My professor informed me that it wasn't my fault and there was really nothing I could've done to prevent it. I must admit, in the back of my mind I truly expected her to suffer from something even worse than depression—maybe something more along the lines of PTSD. I just shoved it back so far because I never wanted to believe it. I wanted my sister to be happy. I wanted to take away her pain. I briefly told her Rei's story, and she concluded that Rei might be subconsciously bringing up memories from earlier years; much earlier years. I recalled many nights when Rei woke up screaming silently, even in her teenage years. It was an eerie experience for me, watching the person I love gasping and writhing in pain, unable to produce sound. 

Even after learning about Rei's depression, I never thought of her any differently. I mean, why would I? She's still my sister, and I still love her; if anything I love her even more now. 

So, yeah, that's what I'm here for. I study every day and night, searching for answers--for ways to make my sister forget about her past. So what if depression isn't technically curable? I'd still find a way to make her happy because that's what big brothers do. 

~•~•~ ((There’s a tense-shift here because I apparently don’t know how to write after taking a break for the night. It won’t affect anything story-wise. I just decided to say something in case people got confused. This story will be told from a past-tense perspective. Most parenthesis () will bring the story back to present-tense)). ~•~•~ 

"That's what big brothers do..." I kept repeating that to myself, over and over again like a mantra. My chin rested in my hands, elbows seconds away from giving out and slipping off of the table. At this point, sheer willpower (and a lot of hot candy) was the only thing keeping me upright. I spat whatever was in my mouth back into its rapper and scraped my tongue across my teeth, trying in vain to get rid of the spicy feeling. In times like this, I couldn't afford to lose sight of what really mattered. In times like this... 

Times like, bending over my third psychology textbook of the night, tired of hearing the same words rephrased into new sentences, new paragraphs. Times like, sharpening my second pencil because I had ground the other down to the metal, and I’d only gotten a few pages out of it anyway because the lead kept snapping. Times like, 1:00am when I'm the only one left in the library, and the librarian is inches away from beating my head in with my textbooks and choking me with what's left of my first pencil because he just wants to go to sleep. 

"Kid," his voice croaked with age. He coughed into his hand. "For crying out loud, it's your first week back, put the books down and hit the hay." I chuckled at his elderly cadence and stood up. "Don't worry about the mess; I'll grab it tomorrow morning." He moved to the door, pulling keys out of his pocket. 

"Thank you, sir." I finished stacking my textbooks on the front desk and moved to hold the door open. One book was still in my hand; I decided to check it out in case I couldn't make it to the library the next day. He exited after sticking his keys into the light switch (really, we still use those things?), and I followed suit. Jiggling the lock on the door, he parted from me, bidding me a good night and a 'see you tomorrow' 

'Yeah, see you tomorrow,' I thought, patting my side pocket for my dorm key. Shit. The library, I left it in the—oh, wait no. It's in my back pocket. Oops. 

I jogged across campus, pole lights shutting off as I neared my building. The lobby was significantly vacant, the only signs of life being the woman who stood behind the main desk, tapping away at her keyboard about something unrelated to her job, some students lingering on the sofas, obviously drunk or high (or a combination), and the potted plants that stood tall at various places in the lobby. One of the browner plants had been overturned and some dirt was rubbed into the cheap, thin carpet. I moved to pick it up and one of the students on the couch barked at me; a woman with long brown hair and pink glasses that reminded me of Hello Kitty’s grandmother. I righted the dying plant, its pot containing more dirt than anything, and brushed what I could off of the carpet before turning around. She looked to be a junior, perhaps. (I myself was only a sophomore at the time, but she carried some sense of maturity, despite being higher than Heaven). She barked again. Literally, she…she _barked_ at me; like a dog! The girl next to her—ginger, long-haired, shiny eyes—began laughing like a drunken sailor (and cursing like one to boot). She slid onto her barking friend and propped her legs against another girl sitting opposite of them. The other girls started laughing as well. It was like a fast-spreading virus, and I was not waiting there to catch it. I took one last glimpse at the front desk, and the receptionist was gone, the “employees only” door ajar and the scent of alcohol creeping through the opening. I heard a faint ‘meow’ from behind me, and with that, I promptly moved to the elevators. 

Still recovering from that mini-heart attack, I jumped into the elevator and pressed my floor number, textbook safely in hand...for about three seconds. The door was closing as two kids ran towards me; boys, both with short, dark-ish hair. One had brittle-looking hair, the other smooth and soft, at least, it appeared soft. I wiped some dirt from the potted plant onto my thigh, messing up the side of my pants. Great. 

"WAIT, MAN," the porcupine-headed boy shouted. Was he talking to me? Of course, who else would he be talking to? I pressed my elbow into the closing door, holding it open and simultaneously dropping my textbook between the doors. The kid's hair looked less spiky up close. He had a big forehead and a tough-looking face, but my subconscious told me not to say anything. 

He blew past me, running into the far elevator wall to stop himself. He reminded me of the gym class jocks during high school who bounced off the walls and tumbled dramatically across the floor for no apparent reason. The other boy lagged behind him; he seemed to be walking quickly at first, but once he noticed the doors would remain open, he slowed to a walk. He halted before the elevator doors. 

"Dude, Ikari, c'mon." The reckless one whispered. 

"...Toji," The one outside returned, "I..." He noticed something; my textbook on the floor, covering the gap between the floor and the elevator. He squinted at the ground, poked at the book with his foot and stepped over it, not looking at the space in the elevator doors. 

Once safely inside, he squatted down and gently picked up the book. The doors slowly began to close. He prodded me with the book in a tender manner, eyes still locked on the ground and made some sort of noise of appreciation when I accepted it. His hands haunted the air with no purpose. 

"Thank you," Though I knew he wasn’t watching, I smiled, then glanced at his friend, (Toji something, I presumed), and he nodded at me. 

"Shinji, what do you say?" Toji whispered again. He waited a few seconds before coercing him again. 

"Y... Welcome," He stuttered, backing up against the wall as the doors finally closed. He gripped the hand rail with both hands and pressed himself against the wall. Toji walked over to me. 

"Sorry, he's kind of anxious. It's not you, it's probably the elevator. He hates these kinds of things—they make him feel trapped, I guess. I don’t blame him; I’m not the biggest fan either. I mean, we could totally plummet to our deaths without warning at any time, and nobody would be able to help us,” Shinji clomped his foot on the ground and Toji hastily apologized. “Sorry, dude. Anyway, we were gonna take the stairs, but they closed the eighth flight for some reason. You can imagine how he reacted to that news..." Toji chuckled sadly, "Anyway, once something sets him off, he's likely to face anyone with that attitude." 

"It's fine, I don't take any offense if that's what you're insinuating." I picked out a city-like accent in his speech patterns. 

"Nah, you seem like a nice guy. Anyway, my name's Toji, but you probably got that by now," He extended his hand and I took it politely. I noticed his handshake was firm and quaintly professional. Perhaps I had wrongly judged his character. "Me and this guy are rooming on the tenth floor. We've been friends since high school. I accidentally pushed him down the stairs on purpose and our teachers forced us to reconcile. Turns out we liked each other after all, so it worked out in the end. Right, Shinji?" Toji raised his voice from a soft, almost-whisper to a normal volume. 

Shinji didn't look up, he merely nodded. "You're being rude, man," Toji coughed bluntly as Shinji released the handrail. "That's it," He stumbled towards us, his center of gravity seemingly thrown out of whack by the lurching elevator. Grabbing the rail by the door nearest to us, he reached out his hand, still refusing to look up. "There you go, just like that." Toji prompted as I took his hand. 

It was soft and weak, I noticed. It was like shaking a fish but with the consistency of flour. (Hey, I'm studying psychology, not poetry). His hand lingered once more, as if he were just too tired to pull away. 

"Ikari...Shinji," the words trickled out of his mouth the way water droplets fall from steam clouds. "Sorry, I'm... Not at my greatest right now." He whined, scratching at his arm feverishly and mumbling something else under his breath. I didn't know what to say, so I introduced myself to them both. 

Luckily, the elevator dinged and our stomachs all did that thing where they lift up like on a roller coaster ride or a bumpy road. Shinji grabbed the bar again, gritting his teeth. The poor kid looked sick enough to pass out at any moment, or throw up. I hoped with all of my might it wouldn't be the latter, but I certainly didn’t want the responsibility of a limp body in a hot elevator either. 

The doors opened, and for just one second, he peeked up, facing the opposite wall of the elevator, where he had been standing earlier. His intention had been to exit, but he froze in his tracks. He went pale immediately and took a step back. 

"Shit," Toji backed up, appearing scared. No, no; he seemed freaked out. It was a look filled with the air children give off when they're taken into a nursing home or a funeral, like he was being forced into an unfamiliar environment. He didn't know what to do. 

"What's happening?" I asked, obviously worried, but more confused than anything. Shinji backed into me accidentally, and he screamed. It wasn't a melodramatic or extensive scream, but I could tell he was freaking terrified of something. His eyes were stapled to that corner. What was so interesting about it? It was just a dusty elevator. I mean, sure, there were some mystery stains on the wall, and the fake tiles were less than stellar, but it wasn’t anything to cry over. 

"C'mon, I've got your back, let's go, the doors are gonna close." Toji hustled his paralyzed roommate, less concerned about his well-being and more concerned about the social faux-pas. I wasn’t one to judge, but I didn’t blame him. Hauling a screaming teenager around at 1:30 in the morning and waking up everyone in God’s creation doesn’t seem like it’d help you make different friends. 

"NO," that empty, far-off scream again, like he wasn’t talking to us; or to anyone, for that matter. "Don't trap me in here with that thing don't close the doors Toji please hold the doors Toji please get me out of here," he wouldn't stop talking, as if it were the only thing keeping him alive. He appeared physically unaware of us, but he continued to talk to us, which was kind of ghostly in my opinion. He palmed my upper body, refusing to look away from that corner. "N...Nagisa?" Shinji all but sobbed with relief at the sensation of another human, seemingly coming out of his trance, if for but a second. I wasn't sure what got into me, but I grabbed his hand and pressed myself onto his back, and I began walking. "WHAT ARE YOU DOING NO, IF I DON'T LOOK AT IT IT'LL KILL ME, _IT'LL KILL ME, MAKE IT STOP FOLLOWING ME_ ," Shinji completely snapped out of it, now fully aware of us. As all three of us waddled awkwardly, I noted how much smaller Shinji was compared to me; not just in height—he was significantly thinner as well. Toji stood close to his friend, on the side facing the corner he now whimpered at, and he shushed him gently. We passed through the elevator doors, and people stared at us, peeking out of their room doors. The doors closed behind us and Toji and I turned Shinji around. 

"See, nobody's there. Let's send _it_ to the ground floor, okay?" Toji pressed the down arrow button and Shinji smiled. "No more bad stuff." He patted the smaller boy on the shoulder, looking incredibly unnerved. Shinji ran off to the right side of the elevators and down the hall, checking behind his back every once in a while, and I gawked at his speed of recovery. I remained perplexed until he removed a key from his belt loop and unlocked a room. He hurriedly ducked inside after eyeing around some more, and I observed how he immediately locked the door behind him, the tumblers clicking in the now dead-quiet hallways. I heard a thump against his door. Guessing he sat down against it once inside, I turned back to face the elevator. 

"I don't know what's wrong with him," Toji broke the silence. I admittedly jumped at the sudden noise, still kind of creeped out because of whatever we just experienced. "He won't tell me. All he says is that he _'sees them.'_ I don't know who _'they'_ are, or why he thinks he's in danger, but I'm trying my best to quell him, you know?" He sighed. "I know he'll never open up to me, and I'm okay with that. He's obviously hallucinating, but he won't let me help. That was a pretty nasty reaction, even for him. It might’ve been the elevator.” 

“Or me?” I tried. 

“No, no way. He wasn’t visibly uncomfortable around you, there’s no way you could’ve made it worse. You actually helped out a lot back there. Ah," he perked up, dragging his foot against a snag on the red and (what used to be) gold carpet beneath us, "sorry, I'm rambling; I should get back to him before anything else happens." As Toji started to walk away, he whipped around and told me something. 

"You know, you're the first person he's physically touched in months, maybe years. Sure, other people console him sometimes, but he's never the first to conduct something like that. I know it may just be a handshake to you, but to him, that's like a God-given. So, I guess what I'm trying to say is thanks, Nagisa." He walked up to me once more. "Sorry for dragging you into this, but I'm getting the feeling this won't be the last time we all meet." I smiled at him. 

"I'd gladly accept that feeling." Toji gaped at me. 

"R-really? No joke?" He seemed genuinely surprised at my offer of friendship. "Thanks, Shinji could really use the extra support. Me too, sometimes," he laughed lightheartedly. Caring for someone like Shinji must be difficult for Toji. I'm sure he has his own life to live as well. Plus, shaking that boy's hand opened something inside of me, like the feeling I got the first time I held my baby sister. I knew I had some sort of helpless life form in my hands, and I wanted to help it help itself; I knew what I had to do. 

I handed Toji my phone. After he copied the digits into his phone, I thanked him, and I made a promise to myself. I thought about it as I turned on my heel and began walking down the opposite side of the small room that housed the elevators. I thought about it as I pulled my key from my pocket and inserted it into the door. I thought about it as I pushed open the door, throwing my bags on the ground and my book on the counter. I thought about it as I grabbed a handful of cereal straight from the box on the counter and I thought about it as I moved to the bathroom. I thought about it in the shower, I thought about it as I brushed my teeth and I thought about it as I shut the lights off for the night. When I went to bed that night, I decided. I decided I would help. Besides, some hands-on studying is always more beneficial than hitting the books. 

My phone buzzed as I was drifting off. I felt around on my bed for it and realized my bedside lamp was still on. Reaching over to shut it off, I grabbed my phone and took a look. Part of me was hoping it would be from Toji or Shinji (okay a pretty big part of me), but it was just my mom texting me a goodnight message, as she tries to do every night. I shot my mom an ‘ily gn  <3’, and let my phone slide out of my hand and onto my sheets. I flopped to the other side of the bed. My dorm room was so empty. People say I’m lucky, not having to deal with anyone else living with me, but I think it’s quite lonely. Nobody to come home to, nobody to talk to, and nobody to hang out with…it just makes a person feel even more homesick in my opinion. 

With thoughts of my early life nostalgically drifting through my mind, I waded into a pool of sleep, the waters bright and filled with dainty dreams. I could only wish the same upon Shinji and Rei.

**Author's Note:**

> I expected this to be longer.
> 
>  
> 
> Also so~rry for any mistakes as I've probably read this about 40 times and I can't tell what's "write" and what's wrong. (Ahahaha, see I spelled right wrong while I was typing it but I tried to make it funny. Never mind, bye). And if you don't like how I spell Toji's name then sorry because I didn't accent it. 
> 
> (This is going to be exactly like everything else. I upload it and then find a billion and two mistakes. Good day).
> 
>  
> 
> Thank you!


End file.
